To Florus 4.123
But let us examine the rest. I think the reader has been instructed more than enough by what we have treated about the strength with which he either attacks anything in my statements or defends his own opinion. It will therefore not be necessary to demonstrate this by repeating all his writings. For he puts before himself scarcely more than isolated, scattered little lines from my book, often praising them and sometimes tickling them with the briefest criticism. Yet what he thinks he should bite at was not said by me in the way he supposes. I therefore direct the reader to my work: he will see that its argument agrees with truth.
This man, who complained that I accused him of attacking nature and seeds, could not endure continuous pretense. After soothing his patron’s hearing with tricks, he puts out his head like a tortoise. He had said that, unless Adam had sinned, people could have generated children as we ordinarily move our joints or trim our nails. Then he added: “But if the seed itself carries no curse, what does this passage in the book of Wisdom mean? ‘You were not ignorant that their race was wicked, that their malice was natural, and that their thought could never be changed; for they were a cursed seed from the beginning’” (Wisdom 12:10–11) (Psalm 58:4–5). He follows the testimony with this argument: “Surely, whoever these words concern, they concern human beings” (compare Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.6.17–2.9.21).
Here is the man who professed to have abandoned Manichaean pursuits! Taking an opportunity from a statement he does not understand, he pronounces the seed cursed, malice natural, and the thought of the unjust incapable of change. It is said that those living beside the Nile’s cataracts have lost their hearing from the roar of the falling waters. Perhaps rumor invented that, spreading larger tales from great things. Still, the example serves to rebuke the deafness of fools who resist the voice of facts like deaf adders, amid the din of mutual intimidation (compare Psalm 58:4–5; LXX Psalm 57:5–6). Augustine cries: “The human race is wicked; its malice is natural; its thought forever unchangeable; its seed cursed from the beginning.” And there are still people who think he has not been stamped all over with Manichaeus’s mark! Let the public followers of that filth be questioned today. If they say anything different, let us be judged liars.
So if malice is natural, how do you pretend not to pronounce nature evil? If the seed is cursed from the beginning, how do you say you accuse the vices of wills, not of seeds? If evildoers’ thought cannot be changed, how do you falsely swear that you acknowledge free choice? Unless the only thing left is for you to say that those Hebrews, Sirach or Philo, who are uncertainly believed to have authored the book called Wisdom, were Manichaeans.
Latin
Verum videamus et cetera. De his quae egimus satis superque lectorem instructum puto, qua virtute vel meorum dictorum aliquid oppugnet, vel opinionem tueatur suam; et ideo non erit necesse scriptorum id omnium repetitione monstrare. Quoniam vix singulos sparsosque versiculos de libro meo proponens sibi, eosque laudans frequenter, nonnumquam etiam titillat suggillatione brevissima; cum tamen hoc quod mordendum putat, a me non sit ita, ut suspicatur, prolatum. Quamobrem ad illud opus meum lectorem dirigo; videbit assertionem concinere veritati. Hic sane qui sibi querebatur obiectum, quod naturam criminaretur et semina, continuam simulandi non potuit tenere patientiam; sed postquam praestigiis patroni sui serenavit auditum, velut testudo caput aperit. Nam cum dixisset, quia nisi Adam peccasset, ita homines generare potuissent, ut solemus aut articulos commovere, aut unguiculas exsecare; addidit: Sed si semen ipsum nullum maledictum habet, quid est quod scriptum est in libro Sapientiae: Non ignorans quoniam nequam erat natio illorum, et naturalis malitia ipsorum, et quia non poterat mutari cogitatio illorum in perpetuum; semen enim erat maledictum ab initio [n178] ? Atque ipsum testimonium quod protulit, subdita argumentatione prosequitur: Nempe de quibuscumque ista dicat, de hominibus, inquit, dicit [n179] . En qui se profitebatur a Manichaeorum studiis destitisse, qui sub occasione sententiae quam non intellegit, maledictum semen, malitiam naturalem, et inconvertibilem cogitationem pronuntiat iniquorum. Fama est, apud cataclita Nili aquarum proruentium strepitu usu aurium accolas destitutos. Finxerit illud opinio, quae de magnis maiora dispergit; valet tamen exemplum ad castigandam insipientium surditatem, qui fragore terroris mutui, sicut aspides surdae rerum vocibus obnituntur. Clamat Augustinus: Nequam est hominum natio, naturalis malitia, immutabilis cogitatio in perpetuum, semen maledictum ab initio. Et inveniuntur adhuc, qui illum non usquequaque Manichaei autument charactere percussum? Interrogentur hodie quicumque sunt ipsarum sordium sectatores publici; si aliud dixerint, nos putemur fuisse mentiti. Ergo si est malitia naturalis, quomodo te fingis malam non pronuntiare naturam? Si est semen maledictum ab initio, quomodo te dicis vitia voluntatum accusare, non seminum? Si immutabilis cogitatio malignantium est, quomodo te peieras liberum arbitrium confiteri? Nisi superest, ut illos Hebraeos, Sirach, vel Philonem, qui libri ipsius qui Sapientia dicitur, auctores incerta opinione creduntur, dicas fuisse Manichaeos.